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Monday, April 13, 2009

State Secrets Bills Are Mostly Secret

Not enough people know about the state secret's doctrine, which we have mentioned here and here recently.

Fewer people still know about pending legislation which intends to cure some of that governmental disease.

In the House, H. R. 984, titled "State Secret Protection Act of 2009", claims that the House bill is "To provide safe, fair, and responsible procedures and standards for resolving claims of state secret privilege."

That would be nice.

My reading of the House Bill is that it would be an improvement over existing ad hoc court decisions.

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